David Morris / APEX
One man says he was “dumbfounded” when he looked out to sea from a village in Cornwall, in south-west England, and saw a gigantic ship seemingly floating above the water in mid-air. It was not his eyes that deceive him, but a rare weather phenomenon that creates the optical illusion.
BBC News meteorologist David Braine explained that what David Morris had captured with his camera lens was not levitation, but a “superior mirage” caused by conditions more typical in the icy Arctic than off the English coast.
David Morris / APEX
“Superior mirages occur because of the weather conditions known as a temperature inversion, where cold air is close to the sea with warmer air above,” Braine said. “Because cold air is denser than warm air, light bends to the eyes of someone on the ground or on the shore, making a distant object look different.”
Previous sightings of “ghost ships” The illusion may have been a part all over the world, but the stark images Morris captured seem to be some of the clearest examples of a superior mirage to date.
Braine said that while in this case the phenomenon caused the ship to float over the water, “ at times an object below the horizon can become visible, ” causing objects that would otherwise be invisible to be thrown into someone’s view almost like a giant mirror.